NPPA: The Best of Photojournalism 2003

As a school for journalists, The Poynter Institute has long been associated with standard setting and "benchmarking excellence." In partnership with the National Press Photographer's Association 2003 Best of Photojournalism & Photojournalism on the Web Awards judging committee, Poynter is proud to present this year's award winners.

Over five days, judges evaluated nearly 27,000 digital images and 75 websites. Entries were submitted in 37 categories, resulting in 97 awards. The judges did not present awards in the Sports Picture Story and Sports Photographer of the Year categories.

Judges applied the journalistic measures of relevance, impact, integrity, photographic content and creativity in the still categories. New criteria of presentation quality, navigation, mastery of the technology and tools were used for online medium. We offer sincere thanks to all of the volunteers, and to Poynter's web and Information Technology teams, who did such an extraordinary job facilitating the NPPA Best of Photojournalism judging. --Kenny Irby

Anne Conneen is a Visual Journalism Adjunct Faculty at the Poynter Institute. In her role as adjunct faculty for visual journalism, she is committed to teaching journalists the finer points of color, typography, and design in the news media. Provides practical lessons that teach participants the importance of understanding and interpreting content in visual storytelling. Emphasizes conceptual, creative thinking in a collaborative environment. Writes about design, information graphics, photojournalism, web design, and interactive media for Poynter Online in a column called The Design Desk. As Poynter's design editor, she conceptualizes, designs, and produces projects for Poynter Online and Poynter’s printed publications. A skilled visual journalist, Anne joined Poynter in 1997. Her previous five years were spent honing her craft at The Tennessean in Nashville where she was the design and graphics editor, design coordinator, and a page designer. Received the Award of Excellence from the Communication Arts Interactive Design competition in 2002. Designed Poynter Online, which launched in November of 2002. Anne holds a B.F.A., Ringling School of Art & Design, Sarasota, Fla.

Andrew DeVigal recently accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the School of Journalism at San Francisco State University. He has been a visiting professional and was a Poynter Fellow in 2000, teaching and directing seminars in the area of New Media and Visual Journalism, and is now a frequent visiting faculty. He helped lead the Stanford-Poynter Project, research studying how users read online news using an Eye Tracking System. Formerly he was an interface designer for Knight-Ridder New Media in San Jose, designing many of the early verticals offered by Real Cities, a producer for chicagotribune.com, shaping the look and format of the original Internet version. In his other life, DeVigal was an informational graphic artist for the Chicago Tribune and the Contra Costa Times. DeVigal has also redesigned several online publications including the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union website, timesunion.com. His work can also be appreciated from the design of Handelsblatt Interaktiv, Germany's financial daily, which was redesigned by Mario Garcia Media Group.

Alan Dorow began his career over 20 years ago by working as a photographer and designer at newspapers in Florida and Arizona. A graduate of Indiana University, he worked in New York for 10 years as a freelance photographer and photo editor at the New York Times Magazine. While spending a year working as a visiting professor at Rochester Institute of Technology in 1992, he developed a keen interest in new media technologies, and went on to form Tango Interactive, a multimedia development company, in 1995. In 1996, he started Story Line, an online publication featuring photography and video in new media format. Story Line became Journal E a year later, and went on to win numerous awards and recognitions, including two first place awards in the New Media category of Pictures of the Year and a recognition for Web Site of the Week by Communication Arts. Journal E recently became Musarium, and continues to publish high-quality online stories. He currently works as the publisher of Musarium and as the principal of Tango Interactive in Silver Spring, Md., where he lives with his wife Lauren and six-year-old daughter Sabrina.

Beth A. Keiser is a 1988 graduate of the University of Miami with a B.S. in psychology and a minor in marketing. While at the University, Beth began working for the school newspaper, the "Hurricane," as a photographer and with much encouragement and support of the school's photo department was able to do an internship in photography at the Miami Herald in 1988. After graduation, she freelanced for the Miami Herald and the Associated Press for two years before becoming full-time staff with the Herald in the Broward County bureau. After four years with the Herald, she left the paper and went to work for the Associated Press in Chicago, Ill., and then in New York City. At the Associated Press she covered many events, including the Olympics in Sydney, Australia and Nagano, Japan as well as witnessing history at the Oklahoma City Bombing, the funeral of Princess Diana, presidential campaigns and the coverage of the World Trade Center attacks for more than a year. In September of 2002, Beth resigned from the AP and is currently a photographer in New York City.

Jean-François Leroy is a journalist who is passionate about photography. He collaborated at Photo-Reporter, Le Photographe, Photo-Revue and Photo Magazine. At the same time, he reports for the agency Sipa-Press. In 1988, he becomes Dominique Isserman’s agent. In 1989, with Yann Arthus-Bertrand, he created “ 3 days in France,” an operation that painted the portrait of France in 1989, 150 years after the invention of photography. Since September 1989, he has run Visa pour l’image, an international photojournalism festival. In 1997, he became associated with Hachette-Filipacchi through the société Image-Evidence, which he is one of the managers of.

Michael Sargent is currently Vice President for News Services / Getty Images and joined Getty Images in May 2001. He now runs their news operation, after a 17-year stint at AFP (Agence France-Presse). Mike has 27 years of experience in the news industry, 11 of them in management. His news career began as a photojournalist, working on the staffs of five different major daily newspapers in North Carolina and Florida. In 1984, he joined AFP to work in Washington, D.C., at the start of their international photo service. Shortly thereafter, he was assigned to cover the Reagan White House, and in 1988, he was recruited at the close of the Reagan administration to work as a White House photographer for George Bush Senior. Within a year, he returned to AFP in the role of Chief Photographer for the Americas and later served as the region’s Deputy Photo Director. In 1999 he became the Photo Director for AFP in the Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong, until being recruited by Getty in 2001.

Robert Seale has been a staff photographer at The Sporting News since 1996. In addition to covering major sporting events throughout the U.S., he spends about half of his time shooting location portraits for the magazine. During his tenure at TSN, his photographs have appeared on more than 100 covers of the 117-year-old magazine. Prior to his position with The Sporting News, Robert was a staff photographer at The Houston Post and The Augusta Chronicle. He is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He lives in Houston, Texas with his wife, Karen Warren, who is a photographer at The Houston Chronicle.

Horacio Villalobos is Director of Photography of Diario Popular in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He began his photojournalism career in 1965 in La Plata Buenos Aires for the newspaper El Dia. Villalobos did his post-graduate studies at the University of Missouri in 1974-75, as the recipient of the first photojournalism scholarship given by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). He received several international photojournalism awards, among them from the IAPA in 1973. Beginning in 1972 - and for more than 25 years - Villalobos has done photographic work for Time, Newsweek and Business Week magazines, among others; United Press International and The Associated Press. He has covered everything from wars and violent revolutions to World Cup football and the Olympics in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceana. He began his career at Diario Popular, a Buenos Aires daily with national circulation, in 1976 and has been the newspapers’ director of photography since 1982. He has been a lecturer for the IAPA since 1980, and a teacher of seminars given by the Association of Journalistic Entities of Argentina.